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Our Verdict

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Our first impressions of BullGuard Internet Security 10 were not very favourable. The software uses a simple white and red colour scheme and looks a bit dull.

Behind the scenes there have been some subtle changes in this latest version. In addition to the usual disk scanning, there is a new heuristic monitoring system called Behavioural Detection. This aims to catch any online nasties that manage to slip past your first line of defence.

Inspector is a new software vulnerability scanner tool. It checks the software on your laptop to see whether it requires an update to overcome any known security problems. In our case, it raised the alarm about outdated versions of Adobe AIR, Shockwave and Java software which was a good call.

We are less sure about the Gaming option in the suite. This piece of software reins back on your security scans in order that your games will play smoothly. That sounds considerate, but is arguably a little unnecessary in these days of dual-core CPUs.

In fact, we found that BullGuard made very modest demands on our laptop and only required a footprint of 128MB of RAM. We feel that a scan should be allowed to run if it is necessary. Prioritising games over security strikes us as very shaky.

A better idea is the Password Protected settings where you require a password to change security settings for the Antivirus engine, Firewall and Spam filter. On the other hand, you might argue that if a villain is sat at your laptop keyboard, the issue of spam is the least of your worries.

The £45 licence fee covers three machines and includes 5GB of online data storage that can be expanded to 10GB for an extra £4. However, we draw the line at £16 for 25GB, £45 for 50GB or £103 for 100GB.

Bullguard offers a reasonable array of features, but there is very little to grab your attention and the aesthetic appeal of the software is non-existent.